


reach INTO your local woods and you may find a friend and a man

by cloverlady



Category: Smile For Me (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Running Away, Teeth, again nothing graphic is shown, cryptid, cryptid habit, family themes, implied habitxkamal, just at the end, nothing graphic is shown, teeth eating, yes i know it sounds weird
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-15
Updated: 2019-08-15
Packaged: 2020-09-01 05:14:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,607
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20252746
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cloverlady/pseuds/cloverlady
Summary: Putunia's plans of running away and living in the woods forever are interrupted by a certain tall, shadowy... man??This is a fanfic of the Cryptid Habit AU, made by keessboy on tumblr. (https://keessboy.tumblr.com/) This is not official to the AU, and I asked before writing. I do not own the AU.





	reach INTO your local woods and you may find a friend and a man

**Author's Note:**

> I hope its AU compliant?? It's mostly an idea I had while on vacation and couldn't get out of my head. Anyways, enjoy!

As the sun dipped below the horizon, the forest fell into a quiet dusk. Crickets gave their final chirps. Lightning bugs hovered above hedges, and other fuzzy creatures tucked into their dens for the night. The gentle summer wind whistled through the trees, and all was sleep silent.

Except Putunia, crunching her way through the first dry fallen leaves of the year. Too angry to be silent, and too determined to sleep.

The final words of her uncle rang through her head- "DON'T YOU COME BACK HERE!"- and her knee was still sore from how she landed when he pushed her out the door. She huffed, ignored it, and hiked over another patch of shrubbery. If they didn't want her so bad, she wouldn't come back this time! For real! She'd just live in the woods forever. Alone, where no one could yell or push her around.

Putunia had to stop by a fallen log and catch her breath. Living in the woods forever was tiring, and her shoe was full of rocks.

As she reached down to unstrap the velcro and shake it out, she rocked the loose tooth on the side of her mouth with her tongue. It had only started loosening up a few days ago, but it already felt like it was hanging on by a thread. Absentmindedly pushing the loose tooth as far out as it would go, Putunia couldn't help but stop and admire the night around her. The grass was blue in the starlight, the trees tall, swaying columns. Nobody had walked through these woods in a long time. She wasn't scared of the dark, though, not even one bit-

A twig snapped, and Putunia jumped so fast she hardly felt the loose tooth pop out of her mouth.

She stared at it in her lap, aware of the taste of blood on the tip of her tongue. Around her, the forest muted. The lightning bugs landed and the crickets hushed. Even the wind seemed to hush and still.

"Hell-o???"

Putunia's heart skipped a beat, and she looked around, but couldn’t see anybody. The voice had come from the other side of the big log. Who could it be? A hiker? A ranger? Her uncle? She shuffled back into the bushes behind her at that last possibility, making herself tiny. 

But she wasn't scared. Not even a little.

Not even when she saw two dark, too-long hands part the untamed hedges opposite her and slip through into the tiny clearing. Not even when she watched a pair of bright, moonlight-catching orange eyes gaze upon her hastily forgotten shoe. Not even when she sweated as it noticed it, and bent down from it's gangling height to grasp it between it's spindly needle-claws with an unnatural grace.

"Hell-oooh????"

It called out again, looking around the clearing. Putunia cringed at its voice- like the fuzz clouding a long-distance phone call, or the half-heard mumbles between bits of snowstorm on a static TV. The way it scanned the clearing made it look like a person, but between the voice, and the way her hair stood on end, Putunia could tell it wasn't. The last thought in her head was who it was, and she didn't even care if it took her shoe- all she wanted was for it to leave her alone.

The tall almost-person poked around in a few bushes, looked behind the trunks of trees, and even peered up into the branches. It looked at her shoe again, and gave a long, winding sigh, like an old machine being powered down. Then, it shuffled sadly over, and plopped itself down right on the log Putunia had stuffed herself behind. 

Putunia's stomach flipped. She tried to bury herself deeper into the bush, to completely envelop herself in it's spiky green arms, but a tree trunk collided with her back. She pressed herself up against it, heart pounding in her chest. The smell of something cloyingly sweet and metallic choked the back of her throat. She stifled her urge to cough, feeling as though the almost-person could already hear her breaths. 

An eternity passed, and the almost-person didn't get up. She clenched the freshly fallen baby tooth in her shaking fist, feeling the sharply smooth edge bite into her palm. 

The little jolt of pain made it click- now was the time for action! The almost-person didn't know she was there, and it wasn't going to get up anytime soon. She could punch it, take her shoe back, and run away before it even knew what hit it!

Putunia furrowed her brow, forcing down her trembling. Trying not to stagger from crouching down so long in her little hiding spot, Putunia stood as tall as she could, aimed, and threw her fist right at the thing's back.

It yelped like a bit dog and jumped back up to its full height, away from the log. Putunia was out of the bush in a flash, scrambling to give chase.

The almost-person looked at her as she clambered over the mossy wood. She met it's gaze as she ran up to it, ignoring the panic burbling up in her stomach when she realized just how tall it really was. It stared for a minute, then tilted it's face to the side, eyes flashing something other than light. She could barely see the outline of it's shoulders shaking as it laughed a little.

Putunia pouted, putting on her angriest, most mean face.

"Give me my shoe back and go away!" she demanded, hammering her words in with another punch, this time to its knees.

This time, it didn't yell or jump. That is, until she looked up at it expectantly. Then it leapt like a cricket.

"Oh! So strong!!" it cried, though she could still see a big blue smile plastered on its face.

Its. His? Up close, it looked more and more like a man- Putunia shook her head. Man or not, she'd REALLY give it a run for it's money this time!

Putunia took a few steps back, and made a valiant punch, swinging with all her might!

It connected with the almost-person's shin, and... nothing happened, besides her hand becoming sore.

"... Am I even hurting you at all??" Putunia asked. He shook his head.

"Can we play som-ething else now??" he asked, smile fading into a line, which disappeared into the shadow of his face.

Putunia sighed, letting her fist fall to her side. Suddenly, she became aware of a burrowing pain in her palm, and, wincing, she opened it.

The baby tooth hadn't punctured the skin, but it had made a deep red indent shaped like a crescent moon. She hissed when she poked it. Great, now she was wounded! How was she supposed to live in the woods forever if she couldn't even-

Putunia's thoughts were harshly interrupted by the sound of something pushing against her side. The almost-person, who had been standing beside her, was stooping all the way down to look at what she was holding. Thin pupils slicing darkness across his huge eyes, he looked at her, and spoke.

"Can I have that???" 

"... You want... my tooth?"

He nodded quickly, as if she'd just asked if he wanted a million dollars. 

Putunia thought, and then realized that now was her chance.

"If you give me my shoe back, you can have it!" she bartered.

He kept nodding, absentmindedly, as he gently set her shoe on the dew-dampened grass. His face looked different now- wide eyes shrunk into glowing pinpricks. Putunia began to get that stomach-flipping fear once more, but she bit her cheek and held statue still with her arm outstretched as he took the tooth. He cradled it in his palm. Finally, after considering it for a moment, he shoved his palm flat against the lines making up his mouth. It came back up empty. 

Putunia stared in bewilderment, and then decided to look away and collect her shoe when she heard the crunching noises start.

She sat down to put it back on, and he joined her, crossing his spidery legs and setting his arms in his lap. The crunching noises stopped after a bit. Absent of them, the night was quieter than a whisper. No cicadas, no owl hoots. She and the strange, spooky man were the only things that could move.

"I lose my shoes a lot." Putunia said, because she had to say something, or the silence would become unbearable, "I already lost these ones twice. They're too big for me. My aunt said I would grow into them, I hope I do soon. I can do the strap all by myself, see!"

Putunia gave the air a tiny kick to show off her shoe putting-on talents, the velcro strap pulled through the little metal buckle so tight it made the opening in the tops of the shoes look like a figure-8. 

The spooky man gave a brief applause. The line of his smile had returned. Seeing it, Putunia smiled a little, too.

"I'm... "Boris"." he said, slowly. His voice still sounded like a skippy VHS. He offered his hand.

Her palm was a penny compared to his, and he felt like warm, bumpy lint straight out of the dryer, but her smile didn't drop as she shook it.

"I'm Putunia!"

The wind worked up enough courage to blow, sending a little chill skating across the tiny clearing. Putunia pulled her knees up to her chest in an effort to combat it, feet sliding back in her loose-fitting shoes. She looked up at the whispering treetops, and her eyes caught the moon.

"It's big and bright," she observed. In the corner of her eye she saw him turn to look up at it, too.

"I can see it from my bedroom window most of the time. It's really dark in my room sometimes, but the moon always makes it nice and bright."

"The moonn is nice in-deed."

"Sometimes I dream about it- that I can fly, and I fly right over the moon, and the sun too! Like a superhero!"

"A souper-hear-o!"

"Yeah! I love superheroes lots! My favorite is Masked Driver- my uncle has a bunch of the DVDs, and if I'm good he lets me watch them, and,"

Putunia had never had someone listen so closely to her before. As she recounted her favorite stories, and some she had made up herself, Boris followed her words, and watched her hands articulate them. He gasped when she said something exciting, looked nervous when she described the peril Masked Driver faced, and laughed and clapped a few times when she described his eventual triumph over the evil organization, Thriller.

Eventually, her words petered off, and her hands fell still against her chest. She felt exhilarated and relieved. As if a weight had been lifted from her chest. Most of all, she was an overfilled glass of joy. Nobody had let her gush like that in a long time.

"What happened 2 ur knee??"

Putunia was brought down from the momentary high by Boris's voice. She followed his gaze to her knee- by the light of the moon, she could see it did look pretty banged up. Putunia tried poking it, and winced.

"Yeah. It's okay. I fell on my knee when my uncle pushed me. But there's no need to worry! I'm much stronger than a little bruise, and I- WOAH!"

Putunia was cut short by being grabbed under the arms and swept off her feet. The next thing she saw was Boris's face, up close and personal. 

He regarded her for a moment. As he nodded to himself, she realized it was the same regards he had given to her tooth- considering something you've already decided upon taking.

"We-r goign home." he said decisively. Putunia opened her mouth to protest, but the wind reminded her of how cold it was out here, and she just shivered as she let herself be led by the hand. As they walked, he minded her, parting bushes so she could slip through and sweeping low hanging branches out of the way. He picked her up to take a big step across a brook, and didn't set her back down.

Putunia didn't mind so much. All the walking had caught up to her, and despite his careful tending she'd taken a few slips as they went. He still had an air of strangeness about him, but, for some reason, she wasn't afraid anymore.

"You're not so bad after all." Putunia said, rubbing her eye, "Just a lil' weird."

He laughed for the third time that night. His voice was a little better when he laughed- still low and esoteric, but sweet, and quiet.

It was a nice thing to shut her eyes to.

\--------

"What is that."

Kamal knew what it was. It was a little kid, a girl, about seven or eight, strewn out on the old sofa, dead asleep.

"Boris. What- where did-"

Boris looked at Kamal, brow furrowed, holding his finger to his mouth as he hissed like the wind going through a tunnel.

"SHHHhhhhHhHHhhhHhhhhhh."

"You c-" Kamal stopped, breathed, and dropped his voice to a whisper, "you can't just bring random kids here! We don't know whose that is! We could get in trouble!" 

Boris ignored him, returning to his task of, very quietly, removing the kid's shoes. His finger pried the velcro strap apart, working it gently to try and make as little noise as possible.

The kid stirred. He stiffened. She scratched her nose, draped her hand across her chest, and fell back asleep.

Boris eased her shoe off, and set it next to the other one, on the floor. He grabbed them both as he stood.

Kamal followed him as he ducked through the door, out to the front room. The ancient house settled around them, timbers creaking as they held the roof steady. Outside the fraying screen windows, light filtered through the trees, and the air was thick with dust and the mugginess of late summer.

Out of earshot of the little girl, Kamal let his volume raise, "Seriously, we- what if she tells- you can't just... ugh. Okay, okay, let's back up- WHY did you think it was a good idea to bring her here??"

Boris was putting the shoes he held on the floor by the front door, away from Kamal. He couldn't read his face, but the air grew heavy with something other than dust as he spoke,

"Little one understands."

When Boris turned around, and his face was a mask of heavy-lidded, teary eyes, Kamal knew he wasn’t going to win this one.

“Fine, fine. She can… stay.”

The crying eyes melted into a smile so wide it looked like it would bloom off his face. Before he knew it, Boris was hugging him, making happy sounds as he squeezed Kamal.

“Alright, alright! Don’t get too excited, I haven’t had coffee yet.”

“Yes yes! Go make sum cof-fee!” Boris encouraged, setting Kamal back on solid ground. He went back into the living room, and Kamal slipped into the kitchen. He could see just a sliver of the room from there, and he watched Boris drape a blanket over the little girl, stare at her a moment, and sigh.

Kamal sighed too. Another thing to worry about. Another person to… share… the secret of Boris’s existence with. Yeah. That was why he found this so frustrating. 

Whatever- he’d deal with it. Later. He’d come here to spend some time with Boris, and he’d do so, even if he had to tiptoe around a sleeping kid to get it.


End file.
